Cost and Quality

Latest KFF Health News Stories

Health Care Battles To Surge Anew In 2011: Jenny Gold

KFF Health News Original

KHN reporters preview some of the big issues coming this year: KHN reporter Jenny Gold says marketplace consolidations, especially with a great number of hospital mergers, could change the health care landscape.

Seniors May Not Rush In For Medicare Wellness Exams

KFF Health News Original

The new health law adds coverage for an annual checkup, but in the past beneficiaries have not shown great interest in the “wellness exams” offered when they first qualify for Medicare.

Long-Term Care: Another Tough Subject For The Next Round Of Reform

KFF Health News Original

Democrats and Republicans may spend the next two years fighting about what to jettison or retain in the new health law. If these battles are resolved, we’ll be back to address another looming challenge: long-term care. It’s best that this happen sooner rather than later.

Insuring Your Health: Looking At The Changes 2011 Brings

KFF Health News Original

Michelle Andrews speaks with KFF’s Jackie Judd about changes in lifetime insurance limits, keeping children insured, the new high-risk pools, rising health costs and consumers’ misperceptions about the overhaul.

Study Fuels Debate Over Widespread HIV Testing And Its Cost

KFF Health News Original

The wider use of a cheap blood test could help cut the number of new HIV infections by more than 80,000 in the United States over 20 years, but the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force hasn’t come around to that view.

No Outrage, No Story In Dead Patients

KFF Health News Original

A good story involves drama and conflict. It’s a great story when a federal judge with Republican ties nixing the president’s achievement in ensuring access to care for all. But a couple of reports about hospitals avoidably killing tens of thousands of Americans once they have that access to care apparently has little, if any, drama at all.

Video: Q&A with Michelle Andrews: Preventive Health

KFF Health News Original

Michelle Andrews answers a question from a consumer about why health plans are not touting more preventive health care to save on costs in the system. But, as Andrews details, new plans are going to have to provide many different sorts of preventive health services for free.

Some Policies Restrict Coverage By Limiting Visits To The Doctor

KFF Health News Original

The new health law eliminated lifetime and most annual dollar limits for consumers but some plans cut costs by covering only a defined number of doctor appointments, prescriptions or other services.

A Bipartisan Budget Will Require Bipartisan Health Care

KFF Health News Original

It is essential that political leaders come together in a bipartisan fashion to put our government’s finances on more stable footing. But that won’t be done if the nation’s approach to health care is supported by only one of the two major political parties.

U.K. Health Maps Show A Shared Problem Across The Pond?

KFF Health News Original

Doctors in some areas of Britain do one type of hip replacement at rates up to 16 times greater than in places like London, according to a November atlas by the National Health Service, mirroring a problem Medicare researchers have seen in the U.S.

Medicaid May Not Be Ideal, But Unraveling It Would Be Foolish

KFF Health News Original

Here is a question for the state officials who oppose expanding the safety net program or support getting rid of it: What do you propose to do instead? The answer appears to be very little.

Is The Individual Mandate Really A Lynchpin In The New Health Law?

KFF Health News Original

The individual mandate as included in the health overhaul isn’t even close to what it has been made to be — a provision that would protect the integrity of the health insurance market by forcing people to buy health insurance before they became sick.

Is There Any Hope For Medicaid Reform?

KFF Health News Original

Recent coverage of the proposals offered by President Obama’s debt commission managed to gloss over a huge factor adding to the nation’s deficit — Medicaid. But the problem wasn’t just in the coverage, but in the report, too. The final version ignored the massive expansion of the Medicaid program included in the new health care lawand didn’t push for structural reforms to the program.

New Rules Spell Out Protections For Consumers With ‘Limited Benefit’ Insurance Policies

KFF Health News Original

HHS says that employers and insurers have 60 days to send out detailed notices to consumers on the limitations of their health insurance policies, which could have effects on so-called ‘mini-med’ policies.

Checking In With Dr. Arthur Garson On ‘Health Care Half Truths’

KFF Health News Original

KHN interviews Dr. Arthur Garson, Jr., on health care sound bites and myths. He says that the massive amount of confusion plaguing reform efforts confirms just how pervasive such myths can be.

Texas Town

KFF Health News Original

McAllen, Tex. spends more on Medicare patients than almost any other part of the country. But a new study contradicts the assumption that McAllen, Texas doctors over-treat everyone.